October 15

In an abandoned weapons factory in Moscow, where the cold snowy night had just begun, OTs-14 was sifting through the atrium, holding the rifle and analyzing every single detail with her own eyes: walls with patches of mold as wide as a fist, stains of moisture dispersed through the walls and floor wet with water and gasoline, the stench of which mixed with the suffocating smell of closedness that permeated the whole building, the lights jumped every ten seconds making the view difficult. Several cockroaches paw undisturbed on skeletons lying on the ground, covered in a dark, dull red, dressed in rags and with their mouths wide open; one hundred of them occupied the atrium only, some were alone others were piled up in small piles like garbage bags, those people were the victims of the Extermination of 2042, OTs knew it but showed no sign of compassion for them and advanced without even dedicate a kind thought to them. She put the rifle on her shoulder and opened the iron door pushing it forward, made a long and heavy squeak and at the end OTs entered the center where the weapons were produced.
The windows were broken and in some areas you could see small hills of snow, in addition to these there were at least another hundred bodies scattered around the production center, some didn't have arms and others had the chest cut in half, one in particular was locked in a room and was lying on the ground, with the pistol in his left hand and a small patch of blood on the wall adjacent to him. In that room, OTs glanced through the different drawers of a desk in search of particular documents that interested her and that had led her into that horrible factory.
She heard a noise coming from outside the room, someone had dropped bullets on the ground. She removed the safety from the rifle. She crossed the threshold with the weapon pointed forward. Silence had subsided again but OTs-14 knew she wasn't alone and wasn't even afraid. She stood still and as soon as she heard footsteps to her right she turned immediately.

" Ah! What are you doing here, OTs? You scared me! "

" I should be the one asking that question, RPD. I had expressly forbidden you to follow me and if you hadn't been lucky enough to meet me you would have died in this place forgotten by God. " She lowered the weapon. " Go away, RPD, there is nothing for you here. "

" I see you keep treating me like a child. " She mumbled. " But I'm not going to listen to you, I'm here to prevent you from hurting yourself. Going around alone in this cemetery is like throwing yourself into a wolf den, you know perfectly well that Moscow is still a red zone and you wander here like a ghost regardless of what might happen to you, and for what? To rummage among the corpses? "

" I didn't call you here, RPD. " OTs asserted returning to the room from which she had just come out. " I certainly have no intention of listening to your lectures, especially because you know perfectly well that you must not poke your nose into my chores. What I do in my spare time is my business. "

" And is that how you spend your free time? Going to abandoned factories to look for things in other people's desks? It's not the best of life, you know? It's certainly not a good hobby, you could ... you know ... go hunting for butterflies. "

" How long have we known each other? One year? Two years? It's incredible that in all this time you haven't yet learned to let me do my business. " She commented as she was checking the sheets in each drawer of the desk. " But I congratulate you for being able to track me down with so much speed. Can I ask you how you did it? "

" If I told you, you would find a way to escape me, like the last time. I'll pass. " She sighed. " Seriously, it's something you do often and I just can't understand you. Why do you organize these escapes at night? Last month you checked an arms factory in Berlin and two months earlier you turned an ammunition factory upside down in Hamburg and then five months ago you snuck into a factory in Lyon, I managed to save you from Sangvis Ferri luckily. Seriously ... what's your problem? "

" These are things that don't concern you. Stop asking, RPD. " A heavy metallic sound broke out, the iron door leading to the atrium had been closed. " Is there anyone else with you? "

" No, I'm alone. " RPD replied raising her weapon.

" Come with me. "

OTs-14 left the room followed by RPD, the two girls reached the iron door expecting to find someone but there was nobody alive nearby. OTs turned to RPD and with a nod she ordered her to approach the door and open it, RPD tried first to pull and then to push the door but this didn't move. A loud sound of broken glass to the right of OTs, she turned and pointed the rifle, there was nobody there, maybe it had been the wind. The door to the room the girls had just come out of suddenly slammed, RPD got scared while OTs didn't hesitate to check.
OTs approached the surface of the door, holding out her ear, there was someone who was moving on the other side, she could hear it perfectly; she took three steps back and kicked the door, broke it in one fell swoop and then that skeletal corpse with a circular device slightly larger than a washer with metallic tentacles that had slipped into the bones appeared. The being had just picked up the gun on the ground, snarled and fired the first shot. OTs-14 was quick enough to move sideways, RPD immediately took cover behind a wall. The living corpse came out of the room yelling like a wild beast. OTs had managed not to show up and fired a straight shot at the device, destroyed it and the corpse fell to the floor, definitely dead.
RPD was terrified of what had just happened while OTs-14 was immersed in her thoughts, from the expression she seemed satisfied to have been attacked by that being.

" See? If I hadn't been here, you would have died. " Said RPD.

" You didn't do anything really. But if you think you've been so helpful ... "

" What is that peaceful air? " RPD asked curiously. " We just got attacked and you act like nothing happened. Can I know why? "

" You ask too many questions. " OTs-14 tore the device from the corpse's skull with her bare hands. " This is more important than anything else. "

" You really don't want to tell me? "

" You're perceptive. " She replied sarcastically.

" Why all these secrets? We're on the same side, right? We fight against Sangvis Ferris with the aim of bringing peace. We're machines, we're T-Dolls created for the sole purpose of fighting to defend humanity. We should work together otherwise this doesn't make sense. "

" Defend humanity? " OTs-14 looked at all those corpses scattered around the factory and that poor man whose body had been used by a machine. " Look around, RPD ... we're not defending humanity, we are avenging it. "